Is a religion based on human sacrifice moral and ethical?

Over the ages, a number of pagan religions have based their theology around the notion that God needs or wants sacrifices. This phenomena has been recorded on many continents from various tribes and peoples who had no knowledge of each other.
I find it strange that God, any God, would be pleased or able to be bribed by some sacrifice, be it human or not. Seems like it is just humans thinking they can somehow change God’s mind about anything from the weather, the forgiveness of sin or a better crop.

Can God be bribed by accepting burnt offerings such as virgins being thrown into volcanoes, meat or crops?

Can God be bought off so cheaply?

What of Jesus our brother?

Psalm 49:7
None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:

If Christianity is based on human sacrifice, it seems to me that that would be immoral and unethical. It would mean that the innocent was murdered while the guilty were allowed to walk away. That is not good justice. Good justice says that the guilty pay and the innocent go free.

Is religious human sacrifice moral, ethical and good justice?

Regards
DL

nope.

Greatest I am wrote:Is a religion based on human sacrifice moral and ethical?

If that human sacrifice's head was rolling down the steps of a mayan temple then of course not. However if that human sacrifice was tortured and crucified only to be ritually cannibalized every Sunday by over one billion people then obviously its moral.

I think its a great idea, as long as you start with the priests.

Thanks all.

Regards
DL

Truthful religion is not based on human sacrifice; it is totally immoral and unethical.

paarsurrey wrote:Truthful religion is not based on human sacrifice; it is totally immoral and unethical.

Nice to see a clear answer.
You would be surprised how hard it is to get people to do what should be simple.
Thanks.

Regards
DL

I'm still waiting for someone to be able to argue that religion, that is to say the belief in something that cannot be demonstrated to exist (in other words, that lacks any evidence of existence), is itself moral and ethical.

My view is that in order to be moral and ethical, you need to be able to think in a rational manner - and belief in a "celestial teapot" is the farthest thing from a rational conclusion extending from the available evidence.

I would think that moral by definition would be God's will. So if God demands human sacrifices, it is moral. At least that is the philosophical explanation. The secular definition defines moral or ethics merely as conforming to societal norms regardless of what they may be. You could use good or evil, but once again good is defined as what God loves and evil as what God hates.

lordshipmayhem wrote:I'm still waiting for someone to be able to argue that religion, that is to say the belief in something that cannot be demonstrated to exist (in other words, that lacks any evidence of existence), is itself moral and ethical.

My view is that in order to be moral and ethical, you need to be able to think in a rational manner - and belief in a "celestial teapot" is the farthest thing from a rational conclusion extending from the available evidence.

It seems that no believer wants to try to refute.
Perhaps they cannot or you good thinkers have already chased them all away.

Regards
DL

Tyrannical wrote:I would think that moral by definition would be God's will. So if God demands human sacrifices, it is moral. At least that is the philosophical explanation. The secular definition defines moral or ethics merely as conforming to societal norms regardless of what they may be. You could use good or evil, but once again good is defined as what God loves and evil as what God hates.

Perhaps but God's will does not match God's commandments as he is shown as breaking many of them.
Then again, if Christian, you would say that they are for us and not him.

I think that do as I say and not as I do is a piss poor way to lead.
Especially when scriptures urge us to be like God.
Catch 22.

Regards
DL

Tyrannical wrote:I would think that moral by definition would be God's will. So if God demands human sacrifices, it is moral. At least that is the philosophical explanation. The secular definition defines moral or ethics merely as conforming to societal norms regardless of what they may be. You could use good or evil, but once again good is defined as what God loves and evil as what God hates.

Yes. It really amounts to how one defines a moral code. For the many theists (including some of the most widely respected and quoted religious apologists) who advocate Divine Command Theory, the question as asked is meaningless. The question, rather, should be "Does God want us to commit human sacrifice?"

paarsurrey wrote:Truthful religion is not based on human sacrifice; it is totally immoral and unethical.

Don't you just want to hug him and put him back in his crib sometimes?

lordshipmayhem wrote:I'm still waiting for someone to be able to argue that religion, that is to say the belief in something that cannot be demonstrated to exist (in other words, that lacks any evidence of existence), is itself moral and ethical.

My view is that in order to be moral and ethical, you need to be able to think in a rational manner - and belief in a "celestial teapot" is the farthest thing from a rational conclusion extending from the available evidence.

Explain that to the millions of kids who believe in Santa Clause. Explain that to the millions of kids, such as myself, growing up who believed in dragons and elves and fairies (well they exist in San Francisco ) even though we could never demonstrate them to exist? So these kids are according to this logic, immoral and unethical because as children they do not behave in a rational matter.

But you may go well, kids are excused it's really the adults you have a problem with.

Too which I ask, what about metaphysical emotions such as love, hatred, trust, etc.? Can these be demonstrated through actions/words? If such concepts such as love, devotion, trust, hatred, etc. can be demonstrated through actions and words than faith should also fall under that umbrella. You may say, "That faith is illogical." But then I ask you is any emotion logical? The Greeks have separate words: logos, ethos and pathos .

Logos is the rational use of reason to decide something. Ex. I brush my teeth after every meal because it cuts back on plaque.

Ethos is the ethics behind the reasoning to decide something. Ex. I brush my teeth because my culture does not accept bad breath, gums, and teeth as appropriate hygenie.

Pathos is the emotional decision making. Ex. I brush my teeth because it makes me feel good.

All 3 have a part in decision making.

Faith in some God may not seem very rational and may fail the logos test (although some apologists would disagree), but it very well can fall under both Ethos and Pathos, therefore having faith in a celestial being, God, angels, etc. is not immoral or unethical because it is a decision based on emotion or ethics.

An example using Christianity and its decision making, i.e. what initially led me to be a Christian my senior year of High School.

Logos: There is purpose in life. Purpose comes from direction, meaning there was a plan. A plan means their is some guidance to the chaos of life. Meaning there is a sense of order. Therefore, I reason that there is a possibility that a deity(ies) exist(s).

You may go that is a very slim reasoning, and yes, which is why I'm an atheist now, BUT, even as a Christian, I knew nothing was 100% certain and I considered the chance that gods did exist. So Logos opened my decision making up.

Ethos: There are certain ethical behaviors unique to the Judeo-Christian cultures. Many of these ethical behaviors do stem from the Church. Humanism began as a Christian philosophy, etc. Therefore following the ethics of my culture, it makes sense to believe in a deity who also practices my cultures ethical decisions. Therefore I could eliminate many deities, except the primary world religions. Now you may sit there and follow Dawkins and Hitchens spiels about YHWH, but even as an atheist I do not. I do not follow that YHWH of the old testament was as Dawkins puts it:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

I just don't buy it. When one reads into the Old Testament you see just the opposite of this description. Anyway that is for another thread, so yes I did consider YHWH as a ethical deity.

Pathos: This is where many here will scoff in skepticism or perhaps when you were an ex-believer you may remember this. The feeling of faith felt incredibly real. It was if the Holy Spirit literally encased me, and chose me. I felt like God was with me and so emotionally I came to the conclusion that God, YHWH/Jesus Christ/Holy Spirit existed.

I don't see anything unethical or immoral about that. It is a process how I came to a conclusion about God.

What is unethical is the one-tracked, stubborn refusal to acknowledge evidence against one's conclusion. There is nothing wrong with sticking with principles, but when you continue preaching or even teaching as if those principles were still fact even after being how they were not, is in my books lying and lying is an unethical decision. I.e. Creationists who ignore reality to hold to doctrine.

/rant

Framing Christianity through Aristotle's a really interesting take, Will.

And hey, it's triune!

This balance between reason and feeling has carried through Christian thought, hasn't it? (The founder of Christian theology, Paul, was after all a big ol' Helenist.) It lay behind the 16th Century reformers' idea of God's spirit speaking to them through God's words: and Richard Hooker's trinity -- yup, again! -- of reason, scripture and tradition.

I see theology itself as embodying the balance. It frames intuitive and emotional experiences in theoretical terms. However systematic it gets, it can't escape its roots. Likewise, when reason is junked, implosion follows.

I guess this balance is why some forms of religion have found themselves in such conflict with science. Ironically, conflict tends to spring from the more systematic elements. They're emotion in denial. The worst of worlds.

Byron wrote:Framing Christianity through Aristotle's a really interesting take, Will.

Really? That's standard middle ages theology isn't it. Anything else was considered heresy by the one true(tm) church. Marco de Dominius was burned at the stake posthumously for suggesting non Aristotelian ideas about the Eucharist among other things.

Thomas Paine, in Age of Reason, wrote:If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge.

This single reflection will show that the doctrine of redemption is founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to that of a debt which another person might pay; and as this pecuniary idea corresponds again with the system of second redemptions, obtained through the means of money given to the church for pardons, the probability is that the same persons fabricated both the one and the other of those theories; and that, in truth, there is no such thing as redemption; that it is fabulous; and that man stands in the same relative condition with his Maker he ever did stand, since man existed; and that it is his greatest consolation to think so.

Emphasis mine.

So not only is the killing of an innocent man immoral, but it shows that the redemption allegory being used is that of a financial debt. Which is an interesting parallel to the practice of purchasing 'pardons'.